


Acting lessons

by Harmonicsconfusion



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: Dorks, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot, acting lessons, nezumi's a big acting nerd, shion can't act for the life of him, shion ends up as juliet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1823812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harmonicsconfusion/pseuds/Harmonicsconfusion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shion was passing the time by reading to the rats and Nezumi had a few problems with how he was reading Shakespeare so he has to do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acting lessons

_“-Go, then; for ‘tis in fain to seek him here that means not to be found.”_

Nezumi had just returned from an acting job a little bit late, expecting Shion to have gone to sleep by now. And yet here he was; white hair in the candle light sitting on chair in the middle of the room, book in hand while reading aloud to the rats again.

From the sound of it Shion had come across _Romeo and Juliet_. But as usual, his casual singsongy voice did it no justice. _“He jest at scars that never felt a wound.- But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the su-"_

Nezumi let out a deep sigh and walked a few steps farther into the room, finally drawing the other boy’s attention.

Shion looked up from the book, his face widening into a smile. “Oh! Nezumi, I didn’t notice you.”

“Shion how do you _possibly_ expect to convince anyone with that tone of voice,” he sighed. A look of confusion washed over Shion’s face. “Shakespeare would roll over in his grave at your lack of variety.”

Looking down at the book in his lap, Shion chuckled “Well I was just-”

A loud throat clearing cut him off. “Shion get up.”

Shooting another confused look in Nezumi’s direction he obediently stood up before asking, “What is it?”

Without a word in response Nezumi walked over and picked up the old wooden chair Shion had been sitting on. He walked over to a few stacks of books in the corner. He pushed them all together before taking off any spare books so that it all was about the same height. After hoisting the chair onto his make-shift platform, he gave Shion a playful smirk as he gestured to the chair, “Your tower awaits your highness.”

Not quite sure was he was getting himself into, Shion made his way onto the chair again, he kneeled on it, his arms resting on the chair’s back like it was a railing. After settling in on his quickly thrown together tower, Shion asks, “What’s the point of this Nezumi?”

“Acting lesson.” He simply states without hesitation. He hands Shion the book he had been reading from earlier. “Now,” Nezumi cleared his throat,

_“But soft! what light from yonder window breaks?_  
 _It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!-_  
 _Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,_  
 _Who is already sick and pale with grief,_  
 _That thou her maid art far more fair than she:_  
 _Be not her maid art far more-”_

Shion flipped through the book trying to find the page he had been on while Nezumi continued.

_“It is my lady: O, it is my love!_  
 _O, that she knew she were!-_  
 _She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?_  
 _Her eye discourses; I will answer it.-”_

Shion was completely entranced by Nezumi’s acting, he couldn’t tell when he stopped paying attention to what he was saying but next thing he knew Nezumi’s voice grew louder, as if he was trying to regain Shion’s attention.

_“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!_  
 _O, that I where a glove upon that hand,_  
 _That I might touch that cheek!”_

There was a long pause before Shion realized it was his place to speak. “Oh!” He fumbled with the book a moment, scanning the page to find where they were, sure enough at the bottom of the page right after the line Nezumi just finished read: **Juliet.** and then the line of dialogue, which Shion proceeded to read in a very awkward, forced tone. _“Ay me!”_

A tiny smirk inched its way up Nezumi’s lips before he continued on as Romeo.

_“O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art_  
 _As glorious to this night being o’er my head,_  
 _As is a winged messenger of heaven_  
 _Unto the white upturned wondering eyes_  
 _Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him_  
 _When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds_  
 _And sails upon the bosom of the air.”_

Shion took a deep breath before starting on his line, his voice wavered a bit but he managed to get through.

 _“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?_  
 _Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;_  
 _Or, if though wilt not, be but sworn my love,_  
 _And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”_  
  
They continued on through the scene like this for a while until Shion became a little more comfortable with it. Every now and then Shion would stumble or mispronounce a word or screw up his line but Nezumi would quickly help him along and they would jump back into the script.

“ _What man art thou, that, thus_  ... becree- bescr-be…”

“Bescreen’d.”

_“thus bescreen’d in night,_  
 _So stumblest upon my councel?”_

Soon enough Shion was putting a little more emotion behind his words, although it was cheesy, it was better than his constant singsong tone he usually reads in. Soon enough they neared the end of the scene.

Shion was still leaning over the edge of his chair tower while Nezumi stood right below it, one foot on a smaller stack of books to seem as though he was climbing the ‘balcony’.

_“Romeo!”_

_“My dear?”_

_“At what o’clock to-morrow_  
 _Shall I send to thee?”_

_“At the hour of nine.”_

_“I will not fail: ‘tis twenty years till then._  
 _I have forgot why I did call thee back.”_

_“Let me stand here till thou remember it.”_

_“I shall forget, to have thee stand there,_  
 _Remembering how I love thy company.”_

_“And I’ll stay, to have thee still forget,_  
 _Forgetting any other home but this.”_

_“’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,-_  
 _And yet no further than a wanton’s bird,_  
 _Who lets it hop a little from her hand,_  
 _Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,_  
 _And with a silk threat plucks it back again,_  
 _So lovingly-jealous of his liberty.”_

_“I would I were thy bird.”_

_“Sweet, so would I:_  
 _Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing._  
 _Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,_  
 _That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”_

When Shion looked up from the book after his last line, which much to his surprise Nezumi had stretched forward just enough to press a soft kiss to his lips before pulling away to say the last few lines and end the scene. As he pulled a way, for a moment Shion seemed to understand the line he had just read, yes, parting is such sweet sorrow.

_“Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!-_  
 _Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!_  
 _Hence I will to my ghostly father’s cell,_  
 _His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.”_

Nezumi finished the scene still completely in character. After a short pause following the last line Shion spoke up.

“That was fun, we should do it again sometime.” Shion smiled  and shifted his weight so he could slide off his chair tower. The chair wobbled a bit under his movement and caused him to let out a little “Whoa!” while he gripped onto it tightly, steadying himself.

“Yeah maybe,” Nezumi replied, sighing as he reached out a hand to help Shion, who was helplessly stuck, down from the chair. “You need to really work on making your emotion more believable. That was about the corniest Juliet I’ve ever heard.”

Shion just laughed a little, finally making his way down from his tower.

“Also, you mumble too much when saying certain lines, you have to be crisp with each letter, and don’t be afraid to talk a little louder, you’re supposed to be able to fill the space of the room. If you’re going to read Shakespeare at all you have to do it right.”

“Alright well then you’ll just have to help me practice then.” Shion lifted up the chair and took it off of the stacks of books, setting it back down on the floor.

A sigh came from Nezumi “Well I guess so… I think I saw _The Taming of the Shrew_ or _Julius Caesar_ around somewhere a little while ago. Maybe tomorrow or something, anyway it’s pretty late we should get to bed, you have dogs to wash tomorrow and I have some stuff to take care of.”

“Alright then,” Shion smiled, “I really like it. _Romeo and Juliet,_ I mean, it’s a sweet love story.” That earned an eruption of sudden laughter from Nezumi, “What’s so funny?”

“Just what I would expect from you Shion,” Nezumi sighed, “ _Romeo and Juliet_ isn’t a love story, it’s a tragedy, and if you ask me, Shakespeare is more so making fun of love than anything else with it. It’s about two hormonal teenagers who stubbornly don’t agree with their parents and go after exactly what they can’t have, and in the end it ends up killing them, or well they both end up killing themselves over it. Not much about that is really romantic.”

“Hey I didn't read to the end yet and you just told me what happens!” Shion whined, earning himself another chuckle.

“Everyone knows they both die at the end,” Nezumi paused, “but oh, yes, I forgot our little sheltered child of No. 6 wouldn't know anything at all about classic literature.”

As usually everything comes back around to his hatred for No. 6. “Nezumi, come on, can you just let your obsession with No. 6 go for once.” He stepped forward so he was only inches away from Nezumi, looking straight into his grey eyes.

Nezumi shrugged and turned around, “Let’s just get ready for bed and get some sleep.” Sighing, Shion gave up and they both got ready for bed.

As they both lied down Shion whispered “Goodnight Nezumi!”

Afterwhich came a mumbled reply, “Goodnight.”

…

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

“Huh, did you say something Shion?”

“Nothing, nothing…”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was just a quicky little idea I had at 3am and I ended up writing it. I just really like things that involve Nezumi being a big Shakespeare nerd. This is barely even fluff I'm sorry if you had higher expectations of this, I threw the one little kiss in there but that was about it. Maaaaaybe I'll write more on this later but most likely not. Anyway yeah, casually slips in my opinions on Romeo and Juliet with Nezumi.  
> anyway thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
